by Dave Delgado
Guam - The Guam Army National Guard recently held their Toughest Responder Challenge along with their annual 5K in celebration of their 30th Anniversary. This year's run was held at GPO. With hundreds of guardsmen, family members, active duty military personnel and members of the community coming out and showing their support.
Finishing the course first was Napu Castro with a time of 17:04; first female to cross the line was Amy Atkinson with a time of 18:31. Money from the event will go towards the Guam National Guard Family Readiness Groups. Right after the race those who wanted to check out the competition from the Toughest Responder Challenge made their way to the Readiness Center in Barrigada to catch the action. Here's Lieutenant Colonel Mike Tougher with more on the event.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Tougher explained, "The Toughest Responder Competition actually began last year it was the brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel [George] Charfarous and some others. It was intended to draw together responders from across the island, whether they military or civilian that would normally respond during a natural disaster or some other type of event. The intent was to create a competition that was what we called battle focused or very functional in nature and test the skills and physical fitness of responders who would respond and support the civilian authorities and the public during an incident."
Helping the soldiers prepare for combat and physical activity have been trainers with the cross fit program. The Cross Fit facility was built in September of 2010 and is open to any ID cardholder age 16 and over.
Charfauros said, "The intent behind it was to get a gym or what we call a Cross Fit box that was available to service members to train them in functional fitness. We wanted to open it up and make it free to any military i.d cardholders 16 years or older. The folks that come here are from all services. We have people from the Navy coming here, we have people from the Air Force, the U.S Naval Hospital, U.S Coast Guard and of course the National Guard soldiers and airmen coming here."
